Every year I am asked about those that have no dreams. What if I don’t have a dream? What if my dream is broken? What if my dream is lost? Life is hard and dreams are fragile things. Sometimes they are left behind, sometimes they don’t work out. Does that mean we can no longer dream? Does this mean that we are somehow broken or deformed?
Whether you realize it or not, every single one of us has a dream. You might spend your day to busy to think of anything else, you still have a dream. You might spend your whole day sitting on the couch, you still have a dream. For some reason, we think of dreams as these giant, grand things but they don’t have to be. Once we dreamed of going to the moon. Once we thought that flight was impossible. Not every dream is one that changes the world. Not every dream has to inspire a nation or a generation. Some dreams are personal. Some dreams are small.
What is a dream? They are things or ideas that we are passionate about. Everyone has a passion for something, sports, religion, relationships, baking, soccer, woodworking, being healthy, blogging. There are millions upon millions of things for us to be passionate about. This is where our dreams are born. Eventually, our passions reveal something that makes us want to get up and do something specific.
Specificity is something that throws a lot of people off. Without it, we are prone to wander off or spend our time idle. If we are too specific we may be dissuaded from our dreams before we even begin. I use weight loss as an example a lot here (mostly because it’s part of my own struggles) and I think it is a good fit here. Saying I want to lose weight is so vague that I can sit around and do nothing and think I am achieving something. If I look at where I am now and where I want to be and say I need to lose 100 pounds? I will quit within a week when my body is tired and I’ve lost a staggering 2 pounds. Something attainable must be set, a goal that can be obtained and built upon.
Now I have stated that a dream is different than a goal. It is. It is a goal is for me to get up and walk a mile each day. A dream is being able to run a 5k again, then a 10k. What is the difference? The amount of difficulty involved for me personally. It is one thing for me to say I will walk a mile. It is entirely different for the veteran who has just lost a leg. A dream is something that is not easily attainable. They are things that you must want because there will be days when it seems impossible. Yet they are still attainable if you are willing to pursue them.
Just because you don’t think of changing the world, does not mean that you have no dream. To say you have no dreams is akin to saying that you have no goals and no ambition in life. Is that true? Really? Everyone has a dream, deep down inside there is something that they want to achieve. It might be something small but that makes it no less grand. There is no one sitting in judgment of your dreams, weighing them against the dreams of others. Your dreams are your own. Their value and their worth are yours and yours alone to determine. Everyone has a dream. Every dream is a possibility. Though they may be small. Though they may not change the world for everyone, they will change the world for you.